NY Times has an interesting article on one company’s method of determining which projects to pursue, Here’s an idea: Let everyone have ideas:
they focus on an internal market where any employee can propose that the company acquire a new technology, enter a new business or make an efficiency improvement. These proposals become stocks, complete with ticker symbols, discussion lists and e-mail alerts. Employees buy or sell the stocks, and prices change to reflect the sentiments of the company’s engineers, computer scientists and project managers – as well as its marketers, accountants and even the receptionist.
This is an interesting idea. I like the idea of empowering employees through concensus based decision making. However, when you have a company as large as Microsoft I feel a benevolent dictatorship is required for guiding the strategic direction of any medium to large sized projects.